Jackie Yamanaka

Jackie Yamanaka has been news director at YPR since 1986. From her home base in Billings, Jackie covers a wide range of issues across Montana and Wyoming. During the Montana Legislative session, she re-locates to the state Capitol in Helena where she has another office.

During her tenure she has won numerous journalism awards from Public Radio News Directors, Inc.; The Society of Professional Journalists, The Montana Broadcaster’s Association EB Craney Awards; The Montana Associated Press; and elsewhere.

Jackie received a degree in Mass Communications from Eastern Montana College (now Montana State University Billings). She is secretary of the Montana Freedom of Information Hotline (http://www.montanafoi.org/) and a past board member of Public Radio News Directors, Inc. When she’s not working she enjoys running and hiking with her dogs, fishing, shooting sporting clays, and playing tennis.

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Republican U.S. Senate candidate Matt Rosendale pledged if he’s elected in November, he’ll serve no more than 2 terms. The pronouncement came during a campaign rally last night that featured President Donald Trump.

Editor’s note: Senator Jon Tester was asked during the press conference if he had met with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Tester had said he meeting was cancelled by the White House. A Tester spokeswoman called YPR Saturday to clarify that no meeting was actually scheduled and the schedulers were working on setting a date. “Jon misspoke. Our office and the White House were working on scheduling a meeting for the week of August 20, but the White House pushed that back.”

A film that’s showing in select cities across the country, including this week in 4 Montana cities, documents how undisclosed political campaign contributions, attack mailers against targeted candidates and secret documents have infiltrated our political campaigns.

Laurel and Big Timber are among the communities across Montana struggling to provide clean drinking water, deal with storm runoff, and maintain roads and bridges. They are also scratching their heads over how to pay for these multi-million dollar projects with their small tax or rate base.

A campaign finance reform group has called out a move by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Matt Rosendale for allegedly moving money around to skirt campaign finance laws. They said it’s another sign Rosendale is trying to hide who is donating to his campaign.

Editors note: this story was updated to reflect comments from Matt Rosendale that were emailed after this story was published.

Vice President Mike Pence rescheduled his visit to Billings, Montana. He’s now to speak Wednesday, July 25, 2018, at the MetraPark Montana Pavilion’s large bay room. Originally he was to scheduled for Tuesday.

Supporters of President Donald Trump began to line up outside the gates at Great Falls’ Montana Expo Park before dawn, even though the campaign rally wasn’t scheduled to start until 4 p.m. Protesters also were on the grounds, but local officials kept them separated from supporters.